Zhou Shiyi tried on the suit, and every cut was just perfect.
In fact, there was no real need to try it on—every custom suit he owned came from this brand, and Zhong Yì didn’t even need to provide measurements when ordering for him.
Jiang Bo kept praising it, saying it was perfect for the wedding.
“You can keep the two sets you ordered for everyday wear.”
Zhou Shiyi didn’t respond, simply sending the two suits to the master bedroom’s walk-in closet.
【I’ve received the suits.】
Zhong Yì: 【They were ordered a long time ago. Not sure if the materials and style still suit your current preferences.】
Zhou Shiyi: 【My preferences haven’t changed.】
Zhong Yì: 【They have. You don’t bring me souvenirs from your business trips anymore.】
She waited over ten seconds, making sure he had seen the message before retracting it.
Then she sent it again: 【Good that they haven’t changed. Good night.】
Zhou Shiyi:
Compared to how others can be so two-faced—whether mother-in-law or mother—no one could match her.
Zhou Shiyi: 【Resend me the message you retracted.】
Five minutes passed, and the chat window remained empty.
Zhong Yì ignored it.
Zhou Shiyi: 【Are you going to call me tonight or not?】
Zhong Yì didn’t fall for it and continued pretending not to see the messages.
She opened the document titled 《1095 Things Worth Doing for Him》. Just now, she thought of another item and casually added it in.
They had been apart for three years, and she had made 1,095 small requests to him.
One per day.
But up until now, she had only listed 76.
Her phone vibrated. He sent another message: 【Forget what just happened. You’re going to a friend’s house for dinner tomorrow, right? Want me to send the invitation along with you?
I can finish it tonight and have the driver deliver it to you first thing in the morning.】
Zhong Yì: 【Yes. Don’t send it to my home; I’ll be at the office tomorrow.】
Zhou Shiyi: 【Then I’ll have it delivered to your office.】
He closed the deep tea-colored glass cabinet door and glanced again at the two suits.
If they hadn’t broken up back then, they would have been married long ago.
After much consideration, he typed:
【If we ever have conflicts again, don’t mention living apart, and especially don’t mention divorce. I will resolve it.】
【Neither of us are the type to quarrel lightly, nor to make up immediately after. Once one side brings up breaking up, the other side will definitely be hurt and won’t look back.】
【If I bring up divorce now, saying we’re incompatible or don’t want to continue, Zhong Yì, would you refuse to divorce? You wouldn’t.】
They were both stubborn and unwilling to yield easily.
Zhong Yì stared at that last message repeatedly. If he brought up divorce, she would never turn back no matter what in this lifetime.
She replied: 【I won’t be apart from you again.】
Immediately after, she added: 【But there might be many demands after marriage, please bear with me.】
Zhou Shiyi: 【No problem, you just say them. I’ll do what I should.】
How many demands could there be, after all?
***
After ending the chat, Zhou Shiyi returned to the study to write the invitations.
Pushing open the study door, for a moment he was dazed—its layout was almost identical to the study at his home in Boston.
Sitting at the desk, he took out blank invitations.
Before starting, he suddenly remembered the wedding photos that still hadn’t been recovered and sent a message to Min Ting: 【Has the chip been fully disassembled yet?】
Min Ting: 【No.】
Zhou Shiyi: 【That shouldn’t be.】
The Jinghe chip R&D team wasn’t that incompetent.
Min Ting: 【What do you mean it shouldn’t be? I haven’t been in the lab for years.】
Zhou Shiyi couldn’t believe it: 【Don’t tell me you plan to disassemble it yourself?】
Min Ting: 【Yeah.】
Zhou Shiyi:
No wonder there had been no progress for so many days. He had thought there was too little original data left on the chip to reconstruct.
But it hadn’t even been started.
With Min Ting’s current skills, the photos were very likely irretrievable.
【Your professional skills have long been neglected. How dare you handle this yourself?】
Min Ting: 【It’s not that completely neglected.】
Zhou Shiyi was speechless.
He tried to persuade: 【Focus on company matters and let the chip team help.】
Min Ting: 【What if photos get recovered that shouldn’t be? Besides me, who else do you think could keep your secret forever?
All the original residual data is on the chip. Maybe even Zhong Yì herself forgot who photos were saved of.】
Zhou Shiyi: 【Of Lù Chéng.】
Min Ting:
Zhou Shiyi: 【I’ve seen that group photo. Zhong Yì would only have handed her notebook to you to find help if she tried every method to destroy the data of that photo. There won’t be any residue on the chip.】
Min Ting: 【What if there is residue?】
Zhou Shiyi ignored him.
Min Ting: 【I’m busy now.】
Zhou Shiyi: 【Don’t be busy then. Manage Jinghe well, and stay out of the lab.】
Min Ting: 【It won’t delay your wedding.】
Zhou Shiyi, thinking of his uncle who had spent so much time trying to help restore it, replied: 【Delay or not, it’s fine. I have twelve copies; that’s enough.】
Putting down his phone, he took a blue-black fountain pen from the pen holder and began writing the invitations.
“Coming?”
***
The next morning, before Zhou Shiyi arrived at the company, he received a call from Zhan Liang saying Vice Chairman Zhou was at the company, waiting for him in the reception room.
The Vice Chairman was his father, who held a position at the group but never showed up in person.
Zhou Shiyi: “Tell my father to wait in my office.”
Zhan Liang wouldn’t dare neglect any proper reception, but Zhou Yunlian declined, saying he came to discuss business.
When Zhou Shiyi arrived, his father had already finished half a cup of tea in the reception room.
He closed the door behind him, sat opposite his father, and caught the red veins in his father’s eyes. Concerned, he asked, “Still jet-lagged?”
Zhou Yunlian dodged: “Not like when I was young; adjusting to jet lag now is as easy as drinking water.”
In this father-son standoff, it was Zhou Shiyi who ultimately gave in.
After much weighing, he decided to take over the group.
Most of the reason was his wife. She had somehow touched a sensitive nerve and suddenly asked him how many people he had loved before, how many passionate romances he’d had.
Another reason was his father-in-law, Jiang Jingyuan.
The night before, they had agreed to meet at a club for a card game.
On the way, Jiang Jingyuan talked about the Kuncheng and Jinghe projects, mentioning that Zhong Yì had flown so far just to meet with Zhou Sujin for cooperation, hoping to achieve technological synergy.
As a father, Jiang Jingyuan naturally cared deeply for his daughter. Looking him over, he said, “No wonder Shi Fanyin dislikes you. Both kids work hard for Kuncheng, but you just drag things down.”
Taking over the group was fine, but he couldn’t remain so passive.
Zhou Yunlian took another sip of tea and looked at his son.
“If I take over from your uncle and get busy with the company, I won’t have much energy left to argue with your mother about the past. You help me persuade her.”
Zhou Shiyi: “If my mother keeps bringing up old grudges, it means she cares about you. Why would I need to persuade her?”
Zhou Yunlian:
What an unreasonable argument!
Zhou Shiyi checked his watch. He had a meeting in ten minutes and asked, “Anything else?”
Zhou Yunlian hadn’t expected his son to show no extra expression upon hearing he would take over the group, as if it was a foregone conclusion.
Shi Fanyin criticized him for not caring about his son, but the opposite was true.
How could he not care about the child he raised?
“There are only about ten days left before the wedding. No matter how busy you are, put work aside for now. Don’t work overtime until the day before the wedding.”
He set down his cup. “I’m doing this for you and Zhong Yì’s sake.”
Zhou Shiyi stood. “What I just said was for your sake as well. Think it over carefully.”
Zhou Yunlian scoffed, “Married for thirty years—who knows your mother better, me or you?”
No point in arguing further.
Every meeting between father and son ended in discord, and neither could persuade the other.
He went back upstairs to the chairman’s office.
From today, he and his older brother would gradually hand over work.
His older brother had recently hired a personal trainer, which puzzled him. After years of working out, why suddenly hire a coach?
His brother initially said nothing, then snapped back: “Got too much money, huh?”
***
Before lunch, Zhong Yì received the invitation for Yang Xi, along with a carefully prepared gift.
The driver conveyed the boss’s words: “Mr. Zhou said if the gift isn’t suitable, call him, and he’ll prepare another.”
The gift was probably arranged by Jiang Bo, who was always thoughtful and meticulous.
Zhong Yì nodded, “Alright. Thank you for your hard work.”
She also prepared a gift for Yang Xi, so the two could be given together.
After the driver left, she called Zhou Shiyi.
He answered and immediately asked, “Is the gift not suitable?”
“No, it’s suitable.”
Since it was her first time going to a friend’s house for dinner, he might have worried she didn’t know what kind of gift was appropriate.
Zhong Yì said, “At first, I really didn’t know what would be suitable, but after checking all of Yang Xi’s social circle, I have a clear idea. Thank you for thinking of this so thoroughly.”
Zhou Shiyi was reading a project plan and stopped at her words, absently stroking the pen nib.
“Zhong Yì, when I said before that we weren’t compatible, I didn’t mean that you had no friends, a bad personality, or that you’d failed at life. Don’t overthink it.”
Years later, hearing him say they were incompatible still hurt her.
Zhong Yì suppressed the sting, “I don’t overthink it anymore.”
Zhou Shiyi: “I apologize for saying that. When we meet, I’ll apologize in person.”
“If your sincerity isn’t enough, I won’t forgive you.”
“It won’t be lacking.”
Zhong Yì had a clear understanding of herself. She described herself like this: “Maybe I have some personality flaws, but I haven’t failed at life. If someone like me counts as a failure, how could Níng Quē live?”
No sooner had she spoken than the person she named appeared at her door.
Níng Quē had now become her new lunch companion, arriving right on time for meals.
Last night in their group chat, someone tagged Níng Quē jokingly: “Boss Níng, you’re young with a bright future. Don’t only think about shortcuts! I’ll go with Zhong Zong tomorrow to the cafeteria.”
Níng Quē was recognized as a good boss. Everyone knew he accompanied her to lunch not because of her family background.
Zhong Yì said to her phone, “Let’s not chat now, my colleague’s calling me for lunch.”
Zhou Shiyi wanted to say more but held back just in time. “Go ahead.”
Zhong Yì hung up, and the man at the door crossed his arms, gazing quietly at her.
“You fail, how come I can’t live?”
Zhong Yì smiled, “Aren’t you always hard on yourself?” She quoted his earlier words to tease him, “When the chip team recruited that future Julao, you said you couldn’t live.”
She grabbed her meal card and phone, going to the cafeteria with him.
Níng Quē talked about that gifted research genius. Of course, not a true Julao yet, just used to calling her that—but with great promise.
“Same age as you, just over five months older.”
“How do you know so much?”
“No choice. Good memory. I glanced at her birthday and automatically calculated the age difference.”
As they entered the elevator, Níng Quē pressed for the first floor and continued, “She’s good-looking too. Saw her once at a cross-team meeting. Her boyfriend also works at our company—that’s a research romance done right.”
He sighed, “I admire you guys. If it were me, I’d have no time to date, always stuck in the office.”
Zhong Yì: “That’s because you haven’t met someone you like.”
“When you meet someone who moves you, time is never a problem. You make calls whenever you can.”
Stepping out of the elevator, Níng Quē mentioned a Hong Kong-style tea restaurant in the park with good reviews and asked if she wanted to go.
Zhong Yì:
“Let’s go.”
Their office was in the east district of the park; the tea restaurant was in the west district. This was Zhong Yì’s first time going to the west district cafeteria.
It took about fifteen minutes to walk. Níng Quē asked if she could handle it.
Zhong Yì: “I run every day. This distance is nothing.”
Níng Quē asked with concern how things were going between her and Zhou Shiyi.
“Okay.”
“Then it’s not okay.”
Níng Quē knew their personalities too well. If there had been any real progress in their relationship, she wouldn’t say “okay” so unwillingly.
He suddenly became curious: what would they be like together in his presence?
“Let’s have dinner together some other day.” He sighed at how fast time flew, “We three haven’t met in six or seven years.”
He had returned to China shortly after they started dating and had been working at Jinghe since.
Zhong Yì also missed the old days of alumni dinners, always called over by Níng Quē—that was one of her few social activities.
She said, “Let Zhou Shiyi invite us.”
Níng Quē laughed, “Then we have to roast him!”
As they chatted idly, they arrived at the tea restaurant without realizing it.
Zhong Yì ordered three dishes they often ate and handed her phone to Níng Quē: “Order what you like. It’s my treat today.”
There weren’t many people at noon, so no waiting in line.
Zhong Yì:
“You pick, just not too sweet.”
Níng Quē rarely ate Hong Kong-style dim sum. If not for accompanying Zhong Yì, he wouldn’t come to the tea restaurant at lunch.
While Zhong Yì ordered, he leaned back in his chair and instinctively looked at what the neighboring table had ordered.
“Hey,” he gestured to Zhong Yì, “order me that dish wrapped in those fine threads.”
Zhong Yì glanced at the neighboring table. On the edge of their table sat exactly the dish Níng Quē described—the Golden Silk Taro Puff.
Níng Quē then asked, “Is it sweet or savory?”
“There’s both sweet and savory.” Zhong Yì said, “The taro puff is sweet, but not too sweet. How about one sweet and one savory?”
“Okay, I’ll try both.”
While waiting for the food, Níng Quē happened to glance and spotted a familiar face not far away—the research genius from the chip team they’d mentioned in the elevator—
Tang Nuoyun.
He said to Zhong Yì, “What a coincidence. We were just talking about that Julao, and she also loves Hong Kong dim sum.”
The person sitting opposite Tang Nuoyun must be her boyfriend, a handsome young man.
Zhong Yì followed Níng Quē’s gaze. The woman was barefaced, with delicate, sculpted features. Her long hair was simply tied in a bun, chatting and eating with her boyfriend.
Níng Quē: “I heard her family is well-off. Her father is also in research.”
Zhong Yì nodded, glanced briefly, and withdrew her gaze.
Someone in the restaurant recognized Zhong Yì. When she suddenly turned her head, they didn’t dare to keep staring.
Níng Quē noticed and quietly gave her a tip: “Next time you go to the cafeteria, don’t just eat quietly. Whoever looks at you, look right back. Who would dare then?”
Zhong Yì laughed, “Good idea.”
The dishes arrived one after another. Since she didn’t eat savory food, she pushed those plates toward Níng Quē.
Just as she lifted her cup, her phone vibrated.
Zhou Shiyi: 【Are you free tomorrow? I’ll take you to my grandparents’ place. They’ve never met you and worry I might suddenly not get married.】
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